ITB Asia Speakers Corner: Stone on sales and why it’s needed now more than ever
Ray Stone, senior advisor, sales & marketing, Accor Asia Pacific, who will be speaking at the WIT Ideas Lab at ITB Asia on October 21, shares lessons he’s learnt from his long career in hotel sales and marketing.Q: You started in airlines, then you moved to hotels and there you stayed. What� [...]
ITB’s new identity for 2011 set to inspire
ITB Asia launches a new inspirational identity for 2011 with the tagline, “Truly Inspiring”. All branding for the event will feature this tagline accompanied by a smiling woman with Asian travel icons, such as the Great Wall and Taj Mahal, woven into her hair.A similar visual identity has been s [...]
Burning Man – a personal experience, Part Two
So where were we? – Edward and I. (Part One here if you missed it) We’d turned off the two-lane blacktop and were heading down one of the six lanes constructed on the playa towards the entrance of Burning Man (BM). The sight of our first Mutant Vehicle had had us laughing and we were on [...]
Compelling storytelling techniques from an LA screenwriter
Yesterday I went to a talk by David Freeman. The session was called ‘Powerful Storytelling Techniques For Creating Compelling Entertainment, Branding, Advertising, Architecture, and Design’Dave (as he introduced himself to me) is a Screenwriter and lectures in the subject but, perhaps more inte [...]
Direct and social will drive Japan in 2011: Shibata
Kei Shibata, President & CEO, Venture Republic Inc, JapanQ: What are the three things you think will happen in the travel distribution, marketing and technology space in Japan in 2011?Distribution: Direct channels bypassing travel agents (including OTAs) will emerge. Players like LCCs and hotels [...]
Egypt focuses on Asia & joins ITB Asia as partner country; show goes mobile
Egypt has made known its intention to target the Asian market with the announcement that it will be official partner country for ITB Asia 2010.This means that Egypt, led by its First Assistant Minister, Ministry of Tourism, Mr Hisham Zaazou, will join the ITB Asia opening press conference and will [...]
Europe’s travel industry on road to recovery
It’s looking bright for Europe’s travel industry, which reports stable business in 2010 with gradual recovery expected in 2011. Germany is one of the beneficiaries from the expected rise in European tourism.Europe’s tourism sector saw a slight upturn in 2010, and will see a slow recovery from [...]
Failure hurts but you learn, and you focus
The first time Morten Lund went bankrupt was when he was 21 years old. He remembers cycling home from the bank. “I was so ashamed and could look no one in the eye.”That however did not stop the serial entrepreneur from taking more risks. Saying that at least seven out of 10 start-ups fail and th [...]
Firefly flies high with new aircraft order
Armed with an order of 30 new aircraft, Firefly, Malaysia’s only community airline, is flying high.The wholly-owned airline of Malaysia Airlines is expanding its reach domestically, going up against AirAsia, and will start flights to ASEAN countries from the KL International Airport in Sepang fr [...]
GDS likened to nuclear weapons, what works outside may not work in China
The opening session of the Travel Distribution Summit in China held in Beijing this morning saw comparisons being drawn between GDSs and nuclear weapons and the contrasts between the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Confucius.It all started with the opening keynote by Ram Badrinathan, general manage [...]
